Language, Negative Affect, and Aggression in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The goal of the present study was to use ecological momentary assessment to examine factors that predict aggression in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In particular, this study sought to investigate the situation-level and person-level factors that predict the severity of children’s aggressive episodes. At the situation-level, we predicted that children would show more severe aggression after experiencing a negative affective state. At the person-level, we hypothesized that children with better grammatical and pragmatic language abilities would demonstrate less severe aggressive behavior. In addition, we predicted that language abilities would moderate the association between negative affect and aggression. We were unable to test these hypotheses due to a floor effect in the outcome variable. Thus, we conducted a series of analyses to examine how variables of interest were associated with the presence of aggressive behavior. We found an association between negative affect and aggression, such that children who experienced higher levels of negative affect were more likely to engage in aggressive behavior. However, there was not a significant relationship between language abilities and the presence of aggression. In addition, there was no evidence for a moderation effect. Future studies should examine other variables that may moderate or mediate the association between negative affect and aggression in children with ASD